Best and Worst Housing Markets in September

How cities stacked up for five different statistcs

Percent Distressed

This statistic measures the percentage of homes sales that take place under some circumstances placing urgency on the seller. Some scenarios include impending foreclosure, divorce or relocation. Any sale taking place with such urgency could be short, discounted or even at a loss.

Best: Nashville, Tenn.; Fort Worth and Houston, Texas; San Francisco

Head down South, and distressed sales haven’t been much of an issue at all. Nashville, Fort Worth and Houston remained part of the “1%” — cities that only had 1% of sales take place under distressed conditions — and San Francisco also joined the ranks, dropping from 3% last month.

Worst: Detroit

While Long Beach, Calif., was the worst city last month, it improved some, leaving the No. 1 spot to Detroit’s 16% — the same figure it had a month ago.

On top of that, banks are also sitting on a large number of distressed properties. When those go on the market, prices could be driven down significantly.